


Sweets and Secrets, Secrets and Sweets

by pseudofaux



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: (hubert would and could still magic-stab anyone for her), Candy, Edelbert Trick-or-Treat (Fire Emblem), F/M, Post-War, They are married, they are in love, they are soft for each other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-31
Updated: 2020-10-31
Packaged: 2021-03-08 23:41:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,045
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27314968
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pseudofaux/pseuds/pseudofaux
Summary: As their lives have made him more perceptive, she has become better able to guard the small wishes of her heart. But Hubert is like a bloodhound when it comes to her happiness. Even if the scent is not to his taste.
Relationships: Edelgard von Hresvelg/Hubert von Vestra
Comments: 10
Kudos: 35
Collections: Edelbert Trick-or-Treat 2020





	Sweets and Secrets, Secrets and Sweets

**Author's Note:**

  * For [flightless_birb](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=flightless_birb).



> A very happy Halloween and Edelbert Trick-or-Treat to flightless_birb! I hope you will enjoy this.

He would give her anything she ever asked for, and he makes every effort to anticipate her needs so she never has to ask. But now that the war is won and their lives in the capital are surrounded by little capital comforts, there are things she wants but won’t ask for. Now she does not so much as mention her wants, not even obliquely. As their lives have made him more perceptive, she has become better able to guard the small wishes of her heart. 

But they are not small to him, and Hubert resents this development. He does not eavesdrop (on her), but he knows she does not keep her fondnesses for ribbons or sweets from Dorothea. He has overheard her telling Ferdinand her favorite flower. The latter was in exasperation, and of course Hubert has been making sure there are carnations at her bedside twice a month for years, even when the bed was a bedroll and even when the cold would freeze the water around the stems. But he’d had to  _ glean _ that information, it wasn’t just given to him in some easy afternoon exchange. And when he asks her outright, she shakes her head-- his wife and emperor  _ shakes her head _ at him-- and tells him there are more important matters. If he presses she puts up all her armor, the kind that separates the two of them. He resents that even more, so he leaves the matter for a while. But it does not leave him.

It gnaws at him as he gnaws at the inside of his cheek. He is the consort of the emperor and truly there is not much that stresses his patience anymore. The people left alive to be a part of the court know better. But this festers in his thoughts until he recognizes the bitter cupric tang in his mouth. He likes it no better than sweets. The situation calls for action.

That very night, when they are standing in front of one of the tallest fireplaces in Enbarr and she is leaning into him, she confesses without prompt that she keeps things like what candies or clothes she might from him because they are “not even sincere, well thought out desires”, and that she thinks what catches her eye doesn’t merit sharing with him-- she knows he will get everything if she says anything. She tells him she does not want to bother him with trivialities, she wants to tell him all the important things she cannot tell everyone else. His wife, his _cause_ , says these things to him.

Above her head, his frown pulls the raw inside of his cheek to sting. Other than that, Hubert feels an unpleasant stiffness, even as he tries to be comfortable for her to lean against. It is his responsibility to know about her. That itself is his desire, he wants to know about her. But no way to tell her this comes to mind (none that are not whining for her attention, and he will not sully their time with such nonsense), so he only nods like a man with a rusty neck and tries to cover his displeasure by stroking her hair until she is ready for bed.

She is the emperor, and entitled to her secrets and her selection of trusted confidants. But for Edelgard’s sake, his cunning can be more flexible than anyone might imagine-- even people who have seen his cunning at work, like Edelgard herself. He resolves that very night to find out what candies she wants, and not to disclose his effort to her until he is successful. The fireplace in their bedroom (not the tallest in Enbarr, but without question the best) slowly darkens, her breathing evens to the cadence of her dreams, and he thinks of places he will put candy for her, once he knows what kind. There is no way for Hubert to know if his eyes glitter in the darkness, but purpose makes him feel very, very satisfied after all the impotence of pique. When he smiles, his cheek does not sting at all. His neck even relaxes. He knows his eyes cannot glitter in the dark when he closes them to join his wife in sleep.

* * *

He is prepared (always) to be ruthless, but Dorothea presents herself as a ready accomplice. She teases more than is necessary, and needles him about why, exactly, someone who never even has dessert might suddenly be so interested in sweets, but she gives up the name of the fruit treats the emperor has sighed over at their teatimes, and even names a shop in the city where they are sold. The soft spot Dorothea has in her heart for Edelgard is something he has depended on before and will again. 

He sees Caspar as he is leaving, but does not stop. Hubert will never be one for small talk, and he would rather eat the sweets himself than ask Caspar if he and Edelgard have discussed ribbons.

So he slips out of his home through a side gate and pays the shop a visit. When Hubert closes the wood and glass door of the shop behind him to keep out late autumn’s chill, the plump little man at the counter seems taken aback, and that feels like a good start. Hubert tells the shopkeeper what he wants and whom for, and the man nods and immediately begins to place cubes wrapped in shiny paper into a box that is not quite gold, not quite white. When the box is full, the man ties it shut with a purple ribbon. The color is so familiar Hubert narrows his eyes, not sure if this is assumption or coincidence or respect. He feels… protective of her youth. Especially against the curious box, the ribbon reminds him of her hair before she took the crown.

The man bows and sets the parcel atop the counter between them. “For the emperor, anything,” he says. Placatingly, he adds “I have heard she likes this color, milord.”

Everyone gets to hear what his wife likes except for her husband, apparently. Hubert hums a short, unwavering note and the confectioner goes pale. It does a lot for his mood. He hopes he never tires of that reaction, it is certainly one of his own little pleasures in life. 

He keeps staring at the shopkeeper as he sets his coins on the counter. Before he turns away, he hooks his finger below the bow on the box and asks, “Where did you get this ribbon?”

* * *

He leaves the first brightly wrapped little square on her pillow, the second beside her combs. The metallic paper around each sweet catches light like a treasure near her things. That feels right. Her pleasure at finding them certainly is. He says nothing, and she says nothing, but when she finds the second piece on her vanity table, her quietly gasped giggle of delight satisfies him like a well-cast spell. 

He brushes her hair before her maid comes in to coil it. From the set of her shoulders he can tell she is happy, and he sees no need to deny himself one quick peek at her profile. Indeed, her eyes are closed and a lovely smile graces her mouth, tiny like she smiles when she is savoring something. Hubert knows just what that is like. The maid is not there yet, so he hums one of Edelgard’s favorite songs, very low and quiet. His voice is not particularly fine, but he feels as though someone has thrown him carnations when she begins to hum, too.

When the maid arrives with tea and breakfast, Hubert has already pressed a kiss to the crown of Edelgard’s head and taken several steps away to stand at the wall. The existence of their marriage is no secret, but the relationship itself is something they guard.

The maid makes polite small talk as she plaits and pins Edelgard’s hair. “Your majesty, you look pleased this morning. Has something nice happened?” she asks. 

“No, Stilli, nothing,” Edelgard says, but she is looking right at him when she says it, and there is something that might be a grin on her face, were she not an emperor. “Nothing in particular.”

His work here is done, and he has plenty of other work to do. He turns on his heel and leaves their room before he embarrasses himself (or worse, his wife). 

Hubert leaves another wrapped candy on her desk, and another at her station in the imperial armory. While she is in the armory, he leaves another on her desk. Before Hubert allows a maid to bring in the tray with Edelgard's lunch, he places a single piece of the soft, orchard-scented candy beside the cloth napkin and glares the wide eyed servant into silence before he opens the door for her and nods her in. The cutlery on the tray rattles, but she makes it inside.

And so it goes on, until their day is done. By the time they have retired to their rooms for the evening, Hubert has given Edelgard a candy for every year of her life. He has not seen her eat any of them (he wants to, Dorothea says they are chewy, and Edelgard’s cheeks are very charming), but her happiness has suffused the day. On the walk from the dining room to their suites, her hand slides into his and he knows he has won not only that precious contact, but some intangible and important victory. 

A servant stokes the fire in their sitting room, in that very tall fireplace, and then they are alone.

“Hubert,” she says, and he is beside her in an instant. That fireplace of their sitting room makes the space feel like the chill of autumn is a weak thing indeed. The satisfaction of the day warms him more than anything.

“Your majesty.”

She rolls her eyes, a pretty pettiness that makes him smile, since they are by themselves. 

“The oddest thing happened today,” she says, putting a hand into the pocket of her dressing gown. “One of these was everywhere I went.” When her hand comes back out she uncurls her fingers and shows him a silver-wrapped square in her palm.

“Very odd indeed,” he drawls. “Shall I have them checked for poison?”

She frowns at him but cannot keep the expression on her face. “Who told you?” she asks.

“I have no idea what you are talking about,” he tells her. Oh, this is quite a lot of fun, for something that only involved terrorizing one person.

“Don’t you want credit?” She is smiling when she presses.

“I’m not one for sweets,” he says dryly. 

She makes an elegant little harrumph at him and unwraps her candy. He makes a note to unwrap the next one for her. Powdered sugar dusts her fingertips and falls in the air as she brings the soft square to her mouth, and then her eyes close and her face takes on an expression of rapture he hopes he will witness again very, very soon. She hums and murmurs a soft “ _ Delicious _ .”

Hubert watches his wife’s jaw as she chews, her throat as she swallows, her mouth as she smiles in full. That smile belongs to the two of them, and he would chew sharp sugared glass every day of his life to make her that happy.

Her sigh is quiet between them. When she opens her eyes, she looks for him and asks if he will kiss her if she has just had something so sweet.

“It’s not impossible,” he tells her, as though his soul is not leaning toward her from his heels.

“Hubert,” she says, her voice too pleased to hold any censure, “Please hurry up.”

So he steps into her space, and the smell of peaches and rosewater on her breath graces him when he comes close.  


“Thank you,” she whispers against his mouth. 

“I don’t know what you are talking about,” he tells her again, before kissing her properly. “But I am always pleased when you are happy.”

“Hubert,” she says. “Stop talking.”

So he hums, and she laughs into his mouth, and he sees for a moment why people like sweets.  


**Author's Note:**

> Edelbert have a verrrrrry special place in my heart. It is where they BELONG!
> 
> I'm over on [twitter](https://twitter.com/pseudofauxtome) if you'd like to say hi. Please do, if you'd like!


End file.
